Shovel Ready

Ready-to-roll infrastructure projects (roads, bridges, schools, hospitals, &c.) that require only funding to begin.

With the American government planning to spend vast sums in an attempt to stimulate the economy and boost employment, the pros and cons of shovel ready projects have been widely discussed. As The Los Angeles Timesreported:

The economic crisis has given Barack Obama an unexpected gift: spending money. The president-elect is drafting a stimulus plan that will reach $775 billion or more, enough to fund almost every project he mentioned during the campaign. But like many gifts, this one comes with dangers. All across the nation, politicians and policy wonks are happily making lists of what they hope to find under a post-Christmas stimulus tree.

However, not everyone is convinced that such shovel ready enterprises offer value for money, or will even work. Tom Schatz from Citizens Against Government Waste told Fox News: “It’s going to be the biggest pile of pork we have ever seen, unless taxpayers protest this ridiculous fund.”

And, Paul Krugman warned: “Infrastructure spending will take time to get going – a new Goldman Sachs report suggests that projects that are ‘shovel-ready’ are probably only a few tens of billions worth, and that a larger effort would take much of a year to get going.”